Cognitive Pearl #004 Kislev 4, 5775 November 26, 2014

Ping pong. Ping pong. Back and forth; back and forth.

Consciousness, thought, indeed all cognitive processes take the form of loops. We see what we see; we believe what we believe; we feel what we feel. The seductive nature of these loops is what allows magicians to convince us that the rabbit really, truly just came out of the hat. We are blinded by the elegance of consciousness. And if conscious thought traps us, low mood states are even worse cages: nature has designed us so that when we hurt our default setting is ‘just a touch’ of avoidance, paranoia, and social withdrawal instead of unbounded optimism and trust. So our clients understandably get stuck in that evolutionary adaptation and then they get trapped in a cage of misery.

Cognitive therapy shine a light on the traps and extends a hand to the prisoners of reason.